Trillium #2 should start with a quote from Led Zeppelin. Robert Plant screaming “Communication Breakdown” would be a spot-on summation for the second issue of Jeff Lemire’s new series. The complete failure of the two main characters to communicate is a curious problem. Both of these characters are human, so why don’t they understand each other?
After the unorthodox way Trillium #1 was split into two separate comics meeting in the middle, the second issue returns to the standard comic format. Nika and William stand face to face, having met in the Amazon jungle in 1921. Problem is, Nika is a scientist from nearly two hundred years in the future. In her reality, humanity has been driven to the edge of extinction by a smart virus called the Caul.
The only cure seemed to come from a flower called trillium, a flower that only grows in small quantities at the far ends of the galaxy. That is, until Nika happened upon an alien race at the foot of what looks like a Mayan temple with fields of trillium. In an attempt to communicate, Nika ingested trillium and stumbled through the temple into the Amazon circa 1921.
William is an adventurer, one obsessed with finding the Mayan temple. His troop is attacked, leaving William to flee into the jungle. It’s there he meets Nika, a woman in a bizarre suit who doesn’t understand him. The majority of issue #2 is spent with Nika and William attempting to communicate, which is where things get a little hinky plot-wise.
First, why don’t they understand each other? Yes, they are separated by two centuries, but I’m pretty sure if I went back to 1813 the language, while different, wouldn’t be completely unintelligible. At one point, Nika uses a stick to write down what year she is from, and William does the same. So we use the same numbering system, but not the same language?
I was also curious why, during all the picture drawing William and Nika were doing to communicate, they never wrote anything. At no point did either person spell out anything, including their names. Isn’t that the first thing you’d do? Perhaps this will be something that feeds into the greater storyline, but for now it feels like a weird oversight on Lemire’s part.
The issue ends when Nika and William discover they both understand the word ‘trillium.’ Nika takes another of the flowers and mind-melds with William. Now they understand each other, only Nika runs off into the temple. Appearing back in her own time, Nika discovers The Caul has arrived to wipe out the last of humanity.
As off-putting as these little incidents are, it doesn’t dissuade me from continuing to read Trillium. Lemire is a slow starter. Sweet Tooth didn’t grab me for the first few issues, and Animal Man almost lost me. Trillium remains exciting to me, and it also remains one of the few books I’m left guessing at when it ends. As for the art, well, I like Lemire’s bizarre sense of the human anatomy. Some will hate it, and I get that. For me, it’s the kind of weird art the story needs.
(3.5 Story, 3 Art)
